When an offshore hydrocarbon reservoir appears to have potential, an initial or early production system of limited cost may be set up which produces moderate amounts of gas and oil. The initial production system can be useful to see whether the reservoir has the potential to produce large amounts of hydrocarbons and therefore justify an expensive production facility. The initial production facility also may be useful to produce substantial revenue during the period of time when a larger facility is being designed and installed. Until about 15 years ago, only oil was considered valuable, and steps were taken to get rid of the gas. One approach was to flare the gas (burn it). Another approach was to compress the gas and inject it into a disposal well. A third approach was to compress the gas and export it via a subsea pipeline, but that disposal approach was available only if there was a customer close enough to make it economical to build the seafloor pipeline. More recently, the advantage of natural gas in producing less local pollution and in producing less carbon dioxide than oil or coal has been realized, and it is now common to export natural gas by long distances by cooling it (below −161° C.) so the gas becomes liquefied. The gas is carried a long distance by tanker in the form of LNG (liquefied natural gas). Applicant notes that as LNG, natural gas takes up a space that is 600 times smaller than the space that would be occupied by the same amount of natural gas at atmospheric pressure. However, facilities for cooling natural gas to produce LNG, storing and handling the LNG and then reheating the LNG, are usually not available during early testing and production. A low cost system and method for utilizing the limited amounts of natural gas that are available during early testing and production, which may last several months to a few years, would be of value.